Snyder vetoes Fr. Marquette board in UP

Gov. Rick Snyder has vetoed a bill that would create an advisory board for a memorial site in the Upper Peninsula honoring Father Jacques Marquette.

Snyder says he vetoed it because it implies that the state would help pay for a new museum at the 58-acre site in St. Ignace, on the north side of the Mackinac Bridge. He says the project would cost millions of dollars.

The governor says a state board is unnecessary and the work can be done by a community group.

Marquette was a Jesuit missionary and Great Lakes explorer in the 1600s. In the Midwest, cities, counties and a Milwaukee university are named for him.

The memorial site in St. Ignace has a trail and picnic areas. A museum was destroyed by fire in 2000.